THE absolutely sorry state of Barbados’ sugar industry and the apparent failure of Government to articulate and implement a credible recovery plan that would appear to garner widespread public support, should be a source of real embarrassment to every proud Barbadian.
We say this not as an attack on the current Democratic Labour Party Government, even though its response to the crisis in sugar for one and a half terms now has amounted to far more talk than action; nor on the former Barbados Labour Party administration, which watched the decline over three terms, introduced talk about a sugar cane industry and a one-factory solution, and did virtually nothing else.
If there is one thing Barbados has proven to the rest of the world it is that we know how to run a successful, viable sugar industry. Slavery and the other negatives notwithstanding, between the 1640s and the 1970s, the national receipts of this nation soared largely due to the development of a sugar culture that was envied by countries larger and more prosperous.
From the development of cane breeding technology to the pioneering of mechanical harvesting, Barbados held its head high across the British Commonwealth and among the sugar purchasers of Europe.
How then did we reach this sorry state? And, more importantly, how are we going to extricate ourselves?
Confidence
What we can be sure about is that talking alone will not help. It does nothing to build confidence, and it is clear that one of the largest missing ingredients from the sector right now is confidence. Saying we will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new sugar cane factory and related facilities year after year does not get cane planted, and does not provide farmers with the incentive to keep lands in sugar cultivation, far less to recommission fields that have long been idle.
And in case the planners and administrators of the industry generally and the Ministry of Agriculture in particular have missed it, with each day that passes the general sense among Barbadians that the industry can’t be revived grows deeper. The extremely late start of harvesting this year and the fact that Portvale Factory was still grinding when the Crop Over Festival was at its height could only have added to the decline in confidence.
Then when “What next?” was the only thing left to be asked, along came the news from Barbados Farms Limited, the agricultural arm of Sagicor Financial Corporation, that it was considering pulling out of sugar cane cultivation and agriculture altogether.
Its officials attributed their position to the loss of $4.5 million over the past three years alone and the absence of “clarity” from Government on its policy for the future of the sugar industry.
We are reasonably sure that if Barbados Farms pulls the plug, there will be a cascading effect across the sector. Two decades of governmental dithering would have brought a near 400-year-old industry to its knees.
But still, we know how to run a successful sugar industry.
